Why Childish Gambino’s ‘This Is America’ Is So Important

Childish Gambino is back, and cherish it, because it won’t be long before he’s back to being Donald Glover. In his recent comeback to music Gambino dropped a track titled ‘This Is America’ along with a music video that sent social media into a frenzy. But what is it that’s so damn good?

Not only is Gambino back, but so is Kanye West. The greatest artist of a generation hopped back on Twitter and said some pretty outlandish things, topping it all off by claiming that slavery “sounds like a choice”. (Albeit for album promotion) The backlash he’s received is monumental, people are feeling that maybe it’s time for a new artist to take the reigns atop of music as the most influential man around, enter Childish Gambino.

Not only is This Is America a much better sound than Kanye’s underwhelming releases on his comeback, but it’s also much more culturally important track, with a Grammy worthy video that I haven’t stopped watching. There’s so much going on that you need to watch several times because first time round all I saw was funky dancing and people getting shot. Don’t watch Gambino dance the next time you watch this video, watch all the riots, all the cops and all the violence, then watch all the teenagers videoing it on their phones. There’s so many hidden messages in this video it’s beyond belief on the first couple views.

The tinfoil hats have been out on Twitter as always, but a lot of them are pretty spot on, the dancing distracts you from the chaos, many believe that this symbolises how America are happy to take certain aspects of black culture but ignore all the gun crime and struggles that go with it. There’s reference to church shootings and reference to how guns are a higher priority than people. Amidst all the chaos, there’s people videoing it, perhaps a reference to how social media has taken over the world.

Not only is the video outstanding, it’s lyrically and sonically pleasing as well, we could be about to go into a new wave of Gambino, just when you thought he couldn’t get better he goes and does this. Maybe it’s time for a change at the top of the heap, Gambino might really be at the top.

His evolution has been something I’ve never seen before. The man is a singer, rapper, dancer, comedian, actor, director and producer, if that’s not an inspirational amount of talent than I don’t know what is.

There’s adlibs from 21 Savage and Slim Jxmmi, a cameo from SZA in the music video, and even death riding past on a white horse. This entire song and music video is beyond what anyone could imagine. The story behind it all is one to try and wake up America and shift them into a better place. This is easily the most important music video of the year, and one of the most important of the decade. If this is the beginning of a full length project from Childish Gambino for one last time, let’s all get ready for a potential album of the year.